Not just in Japan, actually. Last I've seen, just about anywhere where they could put some numbers on historical access to pornography, it correlates the same way with a reduction in sex crimes.

I don't think there's all that much cultural about it. A similar effect has been noticed before between splatter movies and violent crimes, for example. When a new one starts in theatres, for the next couple of days you see less less assaults and such. If nothing else, because they're in the theatre instead of on the

Not just in Japan, actually. Last I've seen, just about anywhere where they could put some numbers on historical access to pornography, it correlates the same way with a reduction in sex crimes.

I've run across this as well, though googling for it doesn't quite yield the results I was looking for.

[some stuff about violent movies correlating with reduced crime rates]. Makes sense for the games too, if you think of it. As I was saying, the correlation was already noticed for movies.

I'd expect the effect to be stronger with games. With a movie, you can pretend and fantasize it's you doing it, but a game is much more immersive. If you need that kind of outlet, a violent game is about as close as you can get without actually doing it.

With a movie, you can pretend and fantasize it's you doing it, but a game is much more immersive. If you need that kind of outlet, a violent game is about as close as you can get without actually doing it.

There is no connection between real life and game violence. If you "need that kind of outlet" of violence, playing a game isn't going to do it for you. They're not that fucking realistic.

There is no connection between real life and game violence. If you "need that kind of outlet" of violence, playing a game isn't going to do it for you. They're not that fucking realistic.

Do you believe that the crime rate drops are coincidental with video game usage, or that the two are directly related?

Assuming you believe them to be related (because otherwise there isn't anywhere else for this discussion to go), do you have a theory as to what there is about violent video games that causes a reduction in violent crime?

Nobody said they're identical, but there is plenty of evidence that people do connect to people in a movie or game in ways that aren't that clearly cut. E.g., seeing some people talking in a movie has been shown to make people less lonely.

You could equally postulate that there is no connection between seeing people in a movie and talking to people IRL, but for the hierarchy of needs the former seems to be enough. The brain can get a need or urge satisfied by just watching other people on a screen.

Reducing crime levels should not be the goal. The goal should be to make communities feel safer.

Mass arrests of petty criminals does not make the community feel safer. Arrests of violent criminals makes the community feel safer.

Rather than chasing after meaningless numbers which only mean something to politicians and police chiefs, they should actually communicate with the community they are policing to ask them what they need.

So when you read "reducing crime levels", ask yourself which crimes? Crimes that

Both TFA's don't just talk about crime levels, they talk explicitly about reducing VIOLENT crime levels. So, yes, it's a good thing, regardless of how you feel about petty crime.

Besides, I don't think the goal of the police is to worry about people's existential angst. Crime is something that one can objectively measure, while communities' feelings are subjective and unpredictable. You can't say that the police failed to do their job, if some scaremongering politician makes them feel less safe in spite of reduced crime.

Or to quote Dara O'Briain, who puts it the best: "[i]I give out when people talk about crime going up, but the numbers are definitely down. And if you go, "The numbers are down", they go, "Ahh, but the *fear* of crime is rising." Well, so fucking what? Zombies are at an all-time low level, but the fear of zombies could be incredibly high. It doesn't mean you have to have government policies to deal with the fear of zombies.[/i]"

A little tip: for italics it's <i> give out when people talk about crime going up, but the numbers are definitely down. And if you go, "The numbers are down", they go, "Ahh, but the *fear* of crime is rising." Well, so fucking what? Zombies are at an all-time low level, but the fear of zombies could be incredibly high. It doesn't mean you have to have government policies to deal with the fear of zombies</i>

Maybe, but I didn't write that forum software, I just use it. And I have to do what works on those boards, regardless of exactly what the IQ of the people who wrote their forum software was.

If I want to link someone to a mod of mine on the Nexus, I can fuss all I want about how it should be <a href="something">, it won't make their forum software swallow that. Either I write that as [url=something] or I don't have a link.

And, honestly, I kinda outgrew the stage of waging a holy war over such issues. I

No holy war, just a friendly heads up. Slashdot lets you use a <url:http... or <a href="http...

I have to agree with geekoid, making your own markup language for your messageboard is retarded. Not using standards is one reason why I don't have any Microsoft software at home (although I have to endure it at work and other people's houses). I'm stuck with IE6 at work (pity me!).

It would be nice if you could edit mistakes, but then you would have trolls who would go and change their stupid posts after the

Well, eliminating everything in angle brackets makes for easier scrubbing of markup. This simplicity means there's a substantial security advantage in having the site markup be a different format than the markup submitted by your users.

Community involvement needs to be tempered by experts. Sometimes they need to be told to shut the fuck up.

Sorry, I just watch community involvement cost millions because the 'community' are emotional tied to a belief. Ignoring facts and data that don't support their belief.

If you lower the incidents of violent crimes, then the community is safer. If you remove petty crimes, the community is safer. You use community outreach to let the community know crime is down, the community feels safer.

Reducing relative and absolute crime levels should very much be an objective of government. Violent criminals are few and far between, whilst petty crimes grind away at society day by day. It's *nice* when you can leave your door unlocked and no-one comes in, or if you leave the gps in the car by accident, it's still there when you come back. You can then spend the day doing something productive, rather than mending broken windows and replacing stolen goods.

Shoplifting eats into shop's margins and forces them to hire more personnel to guard the shelves. otherwise those people could be gainfully employed making new things to sell in the shops (or they could start shops on their own).

And when there is less crime, people are more likely to be trusting towards each other, and are more likely to do business.

To put it another way: Don't lose sight of the little things!

Nobody is defending shoplifters or violent criminals. I'm saying the police don't actually seem to take statistics on how safe the community feels. Do they even care?

If you just want to reduce how safe a community feels, then just reduce media coverage of crime. There's little correlation over time between crime rates and "feeling safe". It's nearly entirely based on how much our politicians want to keep up afraid, so we'll support their agenda, and how much the news is trying to boost ratings by being sensationalistic. This is why there are no "crime rate" stories for the 5 years in a row when the rates are falling, and on the 6th year, when it ticks up a bit, every local station is all over the "story".

If you just want to reduce how safe a community feels, then just reduce media coverage of crime. There's little correlation over time between crime rates and "feeling safe". It's nearly entirely based on how much our politicians want to keep up afraid, so we'll support their agenda, and how much the news is trying to boost ratings by being sensationalistic. This is why there are no "crime rate" stories for the 5 years in a row when the rates are falling, and on the 6th year, when it ticks up a bit, every local station is all over the "story".

Maybe there is too much media coverage. I think the war on drugs and the war on terror were media creations. Yes there are always drug dealers and terrorists, but most people will never be a victim of either. Most people only see the "thug" as a character in a TV show, or in the news, but never have actually known a thug, or done business with a thug. The same goes for drug dealers, most people seeing that stuff on TV don't really know whats going on in the real world and only know based on the media.

Reducing crime levels should not be the goal. The goal should be to make communities feel safer.

Huh? What good does it do to make people feel safer if you don't actually reduce crime?

I agree that "reducing crime" =/= "making more arrests"; any DA or CLEO that says "look at how many arrests I made" is essentially saying "look at how many people I put in a cage". Yes, arresting the right people will help reduce crimes because you're getting the repeat offenders off the street, but just as important in reducing crime is effective community policing and intervention. Arresting hookers and teenage pot smokers makes your numbers look good, but doesn't actually do anything to make the community safer.

To do that, kids need intervention to break them out of the cycle of increasing crime and get them back in school. Police need to get out there and patrol, getting to know the neighborhood and making a positive presence in the community instead of hiding out and making revenue-enhancing traffic stops. People need to take more steps to help avoid and deter crime and protect themselves from it. Parents need to be more involved with their kids. And so on.

Point is, feeling safe and being safe are not necessarily the same thing.

Because the police cannot make anyone actually safe, it's all about whether or not the community feels safe.A community that feels safe wouldn't need to hire as many police which is why police typically criminalize a lot of victimless behaviors in order to look like they are doing something for the community.

Reducing violent crime on paper doesn't mean it's reduced in practice. It simply means less people are reporting violent crimes.Increasing violent crime on paper doesn't mean there is more or less viole

Crime statistics only reflects what has been reported and processed as an actual crime by the system, depending in which country you live this may accurately reflect reality or be completely off.

Barring some mafia-esque effort to actively reduce crime reporting, it's probably safe that the percentage of a given crime that gets reported remains relatively static. I would expect that, even in Japan, a reduction in the number of reported rapes likely correlates to a real world reduction in actual rapes.

In this case, I'd say there's a strong possibility that it is true, though. There's even a word for why: catharsis. In caveman days, somebody pissed a guy off, he'd go beat the crap out of that person. Testosterone is a fight or flight hormone. Can't really do that today. Beating the crap out of pixels achieves the same release for him. It's the same as taking a weapon to a range and unloading into a target, or going to a gym/dojo and sparring, only less exercise.

Adrenalin is one, Testosterone is not. It makes hairy balls and sweaty thoughts. It also stays active your whole life and only the level varies.
High levels do increase aggressive behavior though. Still no fight and flight hormone, sorry.

But engaging in real violence makes you feel sick, light-headed, exhausted and shaky after the adrenalin high. So until games replicate that, I don't see how they're having the same physiological or psychological effect.

1. Birth Control is far more commonly used now then in the previous generation. Perhaps there are less unwanted kids and more planned children who are better cared for so they don't become criminals.

2. Revival in religion. Yea I know this is Slashdot and a lot of the readers here are Atheists or against religion in one form or an other, but there has been a resurgence in religious people. Which teaches at least to stop people from doing unorganized violence.

3. Greater tolerance. Towards People of difference races, religions, and sexual preferences. I am not saying it is perfect but it is getting better.

4. Improved conditions for the poor. Sure the gap between the rich and the poor is growing however the poor now have a better standard of life then they did in the past.

5. Internet, A wealth of stuff to keep you pacified for long periods of time.

6. Stranger Danger. We as a culture has grew up in fear of everyone outside your house, there is a lot less talking and gossiping with neighbors, thus less violence as everyone is so afraid of everyone else that they will dare not to do anything to shake the cage.

7. Aging population. A good part of the population is getting too old to beat the crap out of each other.

8. 9/11 changed everything. Knowing or at least reconfirming that there are "outsiders" who are after us keep us united.

9. Gang awareness and prevention programs, including suburban towns.

10. To many camera, Every (well nearly every) one has a phone with a camera, any crime can have someone taking a picture or a hd movie of it.

1. Birth Control is far more commonly used now then in the previous generation. Perhaps there are less unwanted kids and more planned children who are better cared for so they don't become criminals.

Actually access to abortion, not just birth control, has been singled out _in the US_ as the main cause (and not just correlation) in the drop of violence in the last 20 or so years. The causation has been determined thanks to the delay between access to abortion in a community and the time it takes for the unwanted kids to grow up into criminals. Choice quote: "Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime". More [wikimedia.org]

2. Revival in religion. Yea I know this is Slashdot and a lot of the readers here are Atheists or against religion in one form or an other, but there has been a resurgence in religious people. Which teaches at least to stop people from doing unorganized violence.

I didn't say that atheists committed more crimes. The problem are the average joe who isn't an atheist but isn't overly religious. Often the process to become an atheist is much like discerning to join a religion, you need to make a choice to say you believe in what you do. Vs. a lot of people who never made the choice they just never thought about it much.

I'm sure all of those things have a huge effect on weekly changes in crime rates.

Yes Bob, I saw is on the internet it must be true. jellomizer says that crime went down last month because of easier access to birth control and changes because more people got religion. It went up this month because people got younger and they must have removed some cameras.

And 9/11 matters so much when you are considering crime changes on a 2005-20009 time frame.

2. Revival in religion. Yea I know this is Slashdot and a lot of the readers here are Atheists or against religion in one form or an other, but there has been a resurgence in religious people. Which teaches at least to stop people from doing unorganized violence.

Yea, the organized violence isnt too bad, its the unorganized stuff thats BAD. Oh man, especially when you see an unorganized person doing unorganized violence, with their scruffy appearance, bringing the wrong weapons, its just soo unprofessional,

Birth Control is far more commonly used now then in the previous generation.

Citation needed. This ties into the next one:

Revival in religion. Yea I know this is Slashdot and a lot of the readers here are Atheists or against religion in one form or an other, but there has been a resurgence in religious people.

That must have been very uncomfortable for them. When I get a resurgence I take papaya enzyme. Citation needed; also, Catholicism is one of the few religions still on the rise; as the developed world is now rejecting Catholicism over being a branch of NAMBLA this is pretty much restricted to impoverished brown people. Catholics are not known for using birth control; quite the opposite. Ditto for Mexicans — you may be getting that uncomfortable feeling right

Of course there are going to be kids who rise up above their upbringing, and decent respectable people whose kid winds up in prison. But usually if your dad's a mugger, you're not going to see anything wrong with mugging people. If your dad beats the hell out of you daily you're going to grow up to be a violent man.

As to the link, nobody's perfect. Looks to me like the kid just made an incredibly stupid mistake that he's terribly sorry for. If he had bad parents his response would have been more like "fuck

2. Revival in religion. Yea I know this is Slashdot and a lot of the readers here are Atheists or against religion in one form or an other, but there has been a resurgence in religious people. Which teaches at least to stop people from doing unorganized violence.

Let me get this straight, you're talking about our good religion, and not their bad religion, right? Because all religions aren't equal, at least according to the religious people themselves.

I get annoyed when people use, shall we say, "creative interpretation" to claim that video games cause violence... whilst it's nice to balance it out with the opposite, it'd be kind of hypocritical to support this method of jumping to conclusions just because it's suddenly in our favour.

A game teaches a lot of things.The ability to change different tactics to accomplish a goal. The ability to continue on after a major problem occurs, the feeling of control(agency).

It talks about those thing regarding education, but those very same thing will help people feel like a contributor, instead of a disenfranchised person. Feeling no control, not knowing how to figure out your options, as some of the biggest reasons fo

They develop violent feelings but they take it all out on their fictional characters. They stop going outside (thousands of years of children spent their days outside because they lacked TV and vidya) so they aren't around other people even if they have all kinds of aggressive hormones flowing to compel them to pick a fight with the next person they see.

They develop violent feelings but they take it all out on their fictional characters. They stop going outside (thousands of years of children spent their days outside because they lacked TV and vidya) so they aren't around other people even if they have all kinds of aggressive hormones flowing to compel them to pick a fight with the next person they see.

I'm not sure I like this line of the argumentation. To me it's very much like saying: "Drugs actually reduce the crime rate: most of the time a junkie is stoned, so he doesn't have time to do it". (not that I equate violent games with drugs, neither I'm convinced that playing violent games increase the agresiveness in real-life).

They develop violent feelings but they take it all out on their fictional characters. They stop going outside (thousands of years of children spent their days outside because they lacked TV and vidya) so they aren't around other people even if they have all kinds of aggressive hormones flowing to compel them to pick a fight with the next person they see.

Where I live the children get plenty of outside time at school, although granted there's probably a bit less total outside play/fight time in the evenings or at weekends/holidays than when I was young.

This is common knowledge to gamers or those who know them. I'm no psychologist, but to me, the fact that gamers would rather sit in front of a screen for the majority of their waking existence, and that they focus all their energies towards the game on the screen, tells me that they are a population that is much less likely to commit any sort of crime, let alone violent crime.

As usual the politicians are proven wrong and backwards with their attempts at 'curbing violence' by fighting this battle against the imaginary violence in games.

As usual, it is shown that whatever politicians wanted to do was going to have the exact opposite effect, so when they fight imaginary violence in video-games, they would be causing more of the real violence in real world, because now it is shown that violent videogames reduce violence in real world.

Whenever you are in doubt about what the outcome of any law, any bill is going to be in real life, just take the name of that bill and reverse it in terms of its intentions.

So if they want to 'fight poverty', it means they'll create more poverty. If they want to 'fight violence', they will end up creating more violence, etc.

If they were trying to curb violence there would be a war on violence rather than a war on drugs. There are plenty of murderers who get away with it, there is plenty of violence in society. But when you see most cops do you see them investigating homicides?

Of COURSE there has been a reduction in violent crime in the last few years, and it's rather obvious why. Seems someone forgot to take into account the change in the crime "landscape" that the internet brings to the table. Violent games is unlikely the only factor here, or even the main one.

Who the hell robs a gas station or liquor store anymore when you can sit at home and search for credit card numbers and CVV2 codes with Google? Like credit card companies actually dedicate real time and effort investigating credit card theft? Please. They wipe your bill clean, issue a new credit card, and write off the loss, and the thief hardly lifted their hands off a keyboard.

Who the hell steals CDs from a music store anymore when you can torrent the music in less time that it takes to put your shoes on to go rob said music store?

Bitcoin mining? Another shining example of how "theft" has changed from armed robbery to mouse clicks and CPU cycles.

On top of all that, never underestimate the power of pure laziness. We have an entire up-and-coming generation unfortunately "representing" that.

Who the hell robs a gas station or liquor store anymore when you can sit at home and search for credit card numbers aqnd CVV2 codes with Google? Like credit card companies actually dedicate real time and effort investigating credit card theft? Please. They wipe your bill clean, issue a new credit card, and write off the loss, and the thief hardly lifted their hands off a keyboard.

Had to stop reading here as this paragraph indicates you're just spraying opinion about without actually being aware of facts. If you were to become aware of even the amount of losses caused by fraud you'd realize that ignoring the issue isn't even close to a viable option. And that's something you could find ith just a minute of quick searching. Imagine how much you could improve your knowledge and postings if you actually made the effort to understand the subjects you speak about.

Who the hell robs a gas station or liquor store anymore when you can sit at home and search for credit card numbers aqnd CVV2 codes with Google? Like credit card companies actually dedicate real time and effort investigating credit card theft? Please. They wipe your bill clean, issue a new credit card, and write off the loss, and the thief hardly lifted their hands off a keyboard.

Had to stop reading here as this paragraph indicates you're just spraying opinion about without actually being aware of facts. If you were to become aware of even the amount of losses caused by fraud you'd realize that ignoring the issue isn't even close to a viable option. And that's something you could find ith just a minute of quick searching. Imagine how much you could improve your knowledge and postings if you actually made the effort to understand the subjects you speak about.

Please do not assume that I am completely ignorant of fraud and their desperate attempts at keeping up with the losses. Much like the "small-time" real-world examples I referenced, my statement is accurate in the sense that most financial institutions, or more accurately, city/state/federal organizations do not have the resources available to research and go after every single case of electronic fraud/theft. You know that, and I know that, so zero point in arguing it. That is what insurance is for on man

Something my grandfather knew and my great-grandfather... Many crimes are crimes of opportunity, usually linked to boredom. There have long been clear statistics that kids who play sports, play an instrument, or have dedication to a hobby are far less likely to be involved in crime. If someone is playing video games... They're not bored, and they're not out finding crimes of opportunity. Keep kids busy and they stay out of trouble.

I think it was Alan Dean Foster's "Quozl" in which the traveling aliens have ultra-realistic game setups (not quite a holodeck) in which they can hunt and messily kill their prey from back home. Without that opportunity to drain the aggression from their systems, they know they would turn on each other as easily as on outsiders. Cesar Milan, "The Dog Whisperer", often talks about making sure one uses up a pet's energy for similar reasons. Why should anyone be surprised that humans have the same problem - especially humans who aren't satisfied with just sitting and reading/.?

In Quozl, it was not games specifically, it was all of their art. From still-life to video to a form of social competition that involves martial arts counting coup where you try to almost hit and any actual contact is a shaming loss.No doubt due in part to the aliens all experiencing a sort of blood-rage where drawing blood/having blood drawn will send them into a homicidal rage unless they exercise the control to prevent it. (one of the main characters must fight down this rage after being scratched by a

I'm giving up any opportunity to use mod points here to agree with this too. I'm basically moderate with some conservative leanings, but in this area I lean the other way. It's no kind of life for a kid to grow up hated, neglected, resented, abused, and/or even beaten by his parent(s), and likely in an impoverished environment at that. That creates a twisted mindset and destroys quality of life. It's just cruel. Life without love is hell on earth, and forcing a child on parents who had no intention of sai

The actual cause is not merely that it servers as an outlet for aggression, but that it also serves to dilute the overall effect of social anger. That is, you give enough sparkly lights and distractions and toys to even the most frustrated person and they will largely stop doing bad things.

In other words, your kids are learning to play video games instead of doing things like camping and hunting and so on - so even if they wanted to do anything, they largely would lack the tools and knowledge to do so. An

Socrates complained about "the kids these days" as well, so I'm guessing that your perception of college students being "vapid drones" is nothing new. The world changes, and kids tend to change the fastest because there are the least number of society driven inhibitions indoctrinated into them. This generation of "vapid drones" merely reflects the changes that constant access to media is having on us.

And, uh, last I checked most 18-22 year olds arn't incredibly ambitious, driven nor self-sufficient and I

No, it's far worse than at any time in human history. The real sad thing about video games and modern media (internet and all of the rest) is that the major effect of them seems to be that it causes a lack of focus in life due to the incredible ease by which one can escape from reality. I notice this with my 12 year old son. He wants to be online and talk and chat and play games instead of doing anything that is actually connected to real people or that requires that he use his actual skills or body. An

I notice this with my 12 year old son. He wants to be online and talk and chat and play games instead of doing anything that is actually connected to real people or that requires that he use his actual skills or body.

Although I've failed the Turing test a number of times, I promise you I am a real human being that is using his real human fingers to type on a real keyboard that sends real electronic impulses that are interpreted by computer hardware and software made by real people that send real network traffic over switches and routers configured by real people to servers built and maintained by real people and eventually sent back over the previously mentioned real network to be converted by real software and hardware

But you are not 12, quite obviously. At some point in time you learned enough about computers and programming to know about all of that and those technical terms. Most of it all, though, was designed and built by people that are now likely older than you are. The huge gap in technical degrees in the U.S. that is forming is a very real sign that something awful is happening to our kids. And those that do get them are often barely usable as workers as they essentially have to be trained for several year

A 12 year old who'd rather play than work, who would of thunk it! I stand by what I said earlier, Socrates too lamented about the kids these days. And your sons generation will lament about the kids one day too, your doom saying is nothing new nor is the sky about to come crashing down on all of us.

And yes, the traditional manifestation of the American Dream is dead. Low-skilled manufacturing jobs, which were the bulk of the jobs that provided the American Dream for my parents generation are gone, and th

I am making a real effort to try to teach him things, though. But most of his friends are so close to useless, at even their ages, that I really worry about our future. It's much worse (or will be in ten years) than most people can or want to imagine. We're churning out an entire generation of lumps without realizing it.

Thinking outside of the box isn't something you are born with, either. It's largely a product of having hundreds of smaller experiences and skills to draw upon.

I didn't know those were basic skills. Camping and hunting are irrelevant to me. I like neither. And since these people are playing video games instead of doing these things, perhaps the same is true of them. And how are those important? I'd think that you would only need to learn how to camp or hunt if you wanted to do either of those things (the same could be said about the other things as well).

It could be almost anything. I used those as examples. Physical skills of any kind, be it writing, playing sports, reading a book, or some hobby are important to learn as they set up your mind and body for the task of solving real-world problems as an adult. The major issue that I see with today's entertainment is that it teaches kids almost no actual physical or analytical skills. And it's so much easier to be distracted by it all than to actually spend the time doing things that matter.

Unfortunately, I am no stranger to that, either. I used those as examples of physical skills and analytical thinking. Training your mind and body to do things that are physical and connected to the real world is critical and it used to be a normal part of growing up. Now you have kids essentially sitting and watching a screen or cell phone instead or learning even the most basic real-world skills. Kids are incredibly hard to motivate to even go over to their friend's house or do any physical activity.

Sure, but lack of correlation, or indeed anticorrelation as is the case here, refutes causation. If a implies (causes) b, and b is true, then that says nothing about whether a is true. However, if a implies b, and b is false, then a must be false.

Of course there are many other factors at play in these crime rates - and I wouldn't 'credit' violent games with reducing crime levels, but this does provide a useful argument against the idea that violent video games cause violent behaviour.

This is not true. Lack of correlation only refutes causation if you can eliminate all other variables. Just because you are unable to observe an effect does not prove that the effect does not exist. The lack of observed correlation between a and b could be due to some unobserved hidden variable.

Right. However, what the anti-correlation does show is that any hypothetical pro-violence effect of video games must be so small that it is utterly swamped by other social and demographic factors that impact violent crime.

> So for an even better result you might try nonviolent games, free prostitutes, or marijauna (just tie the subjects down in case they experience an episode of reefer madness).

The existence of C does not modify the relative merits of A and B. You don't have an iron hand with which you can force people to lead the lifestyle you consider "optimal". For some individuals, the time use preference order is violent video games > violent crime > nonviolent video games, prostitutes and marijuana, and we do

1. They don't say that violent games cause an increase in VIOLENT CRIME, but in aggression. Which is a whole other dish. One can be aggressive in various ways that don't actually involve bashing someone's head in.

The difference is basically like that between feeling horny and rape. Even if, say, pornography makes people hornier, it doesn't also make them go rape someone. I'm using that example because we already have a damn good correlation between access to pornography and a dramatic reduction

You could be right. You could also be wrong. You see, the difference between your comments and this study is that a group of researchers took the time to develop and conduct a study that examined particular aspects of human behaviour. Your comments are based upon what you think is true about the world, but you didn't take the time to do the research to affirm or disprove your own theory. Of course, that doesn't mean that you're wrong. It simply means that you cannot prove that you are correct.

Aggression is like a pressure valve. Periodically, it needs to be let out. When you are mad, you just want to beat up/abuse some one. You may regret it later, but at that moment, this is what will help you calm down. Once you calm down, the tendency to abuse/beat up will go away.

Yes, because human beings are just unthinking animals. Seriously, if you have this problem, get some fucking therapy or something, or you will keep ending up in jail.

as a father and former child... kids playing and violent crime are worlds apart. Unless every thanksgiving the kids went out and gang-raped a neighour a beat the daylights out of a [insert racial epithet of choice]. I think the 'kids less active due to video games' is a different topic all together.

Wouldn't this be an argument for not going after people for simply watching child pornography?

Pedophilia is more like a compulsive disorder than anything else. Most other violent crimes are impulsive--serial killers and some rapists are likely not, but they are in the minority of violent criminals, whereas only people with profound compulsions ever commit sex crimes against children, as anyone who isn't insane finds such acts so repugnant that they never have any impulse to commit them. Sex with adults and violence against anything are natural human impulses. Sex with children is nothing of the k

Wouldn't this be an argument for not going after people for simply watching child pornography? Obviously arrest those who produce it, but I've always felt those who simply downloaded files and watched it aren't doing anyone any harm.

OK, so why don't you try explaining your idea that no harm is being done to some survivors of child sexual abuse?

I truly believe that the concealed carry gun laws are to thank and more people defending themselves. Criminals now fear being shot by armed citizens. It shows that Brady Campaign is wrong. If it were the video games, then crime would be falling in Europe and the world too.

I don't believe hat is a plausible argument, unless you can provide strong evidence of muggers being shot or something. If I'm walking along and someone steps out from a shop doorway in front of me with a gun asking for my wallet, it is fantastically unlikely that I'm going to be able to draw my concealed weapon and shoot him first.

Possibly if I'm a trained undercover police/military oficer on alert and the mugger is a bit woozy on drugs or something, but overall I'd have thought that going for your ow